Western Kentucky-UCLA: postgame III

Bruin forward James Keefe was the focus of the postgame media interview session at the US Airways Center in Phoenix after his 18-point, 12-rebound — double career-high — performance.

He told reporters, "This is why I came back. In December, it was rough redshirting, see my team play and wishing I was out there and then coming back, but this is why I came back. We had foul trouble and you need depth to go far in this tournament, and it was great that it worked out.

"We have great big guys; we have five big guys who can play any amount of minutes depending on foul trouble. With that depth, we just trade off on who plays and who doesn’t."

He also spoke a little later with CBS-TV Channel2's Jim Hill:

"There was a lot of foul trouble, so I had to step up, the bench had to step up. But it was just one of those games; I was in the zone and I was feeling it. Usually I just come off the bench and play a decent amount, but with the foul trouble, I had to play some more minutes. But this is not the norm for me."

About the Hilltoppers’ frenzied second-half play, he noted: "They had a great run. You have to give it to them; they sped us up. Our press break wasn’t that great tonight. But there was no panic; you have to stay poised and composed. I think we took a step back and realized that we had to finish this off and we did. This was going to be their last game of the season if they didn’t come out and play after halftime. That was the speech going in, but they made a great run. We were able to finish it off in the end."

Keefe said the Bruins didn’t panic. "We have a great bond on the team, the second team is always rooting on for each other because we’re always sticking together, beating up the guys in practice. We have a tight-knit group here, so it’s good to have the support. We handled business when it counted like it was the end of the day."

Guard Russell Westbrook also spent some time with Hill on the "Sports Central" postgame show:

"Man, that was real crazy," Westbrook said. "It was tough for us in the second half; they got a big run. We had to withstand the run, but we pulled out the victory. We played real passive to start out in the second half, but we picked it up in the last five minutes or so and we pulled out the victory.

"That was a great team we faced tonight. They were everywhere, they were trapping and getting steals and just speeding us up a little bit. We didn’t panic a bit; we knew we could pull out the victory. We knocked down our free throws toward the end of the game and pulled it out. It’s a sense of relief."

Hill asked about the contributions of Keefe and Josh Shipp, and Westbrook said: "James Keefe has been playing great for us all year long and he really stepped up today and helped us pull out this victory. The crowd was really happy for Josh for making that three; he was scoreless last game, but he was real big for us today."

What about Saturday? "Xavier is a great team. I saw them win their last two tournament games and I know that’s a great team we’re about to face. So we’ve got to start getting prepared to play. They probably saw [Western Kentucky’s press], so we’re going to work on that tomorrow, probably with coach during practice, so we’ve got to be prepared to play."

Freshman center Kevin Love also spoke with Hill. "I thought we had it in the first half. We were up 21 points; we handled their pressure very well. We slowed down and played our tempo, but in the second half it was a different story. Western Kentucky is a very good team and we didn’t handle it as well as we did in the first half. We played to their tempo, and we took quick shots in the shot clock and did some uncharacteristic things and not play UCLA basketball in the second half.

"We just sped up. We were taking pull-ups with 25 seconds on the shot clock, taking threes when we should have pounded it inside and got something better or maybe an open three on the outside, but we made our free-throws down the stretch and Josh hit a big three to put us up nine and that was it for us."

Hill asked about Western Kentucky’s attempts to slow Love down, which didn’t work. "I just had to take advantage of my size inside," Love said, "because they really didn’t have anybody who could match up with me. So we just took advantage of what we had, but in the second half we had a little bit of a letdown. We can’t keep doing that to ourselves because that’s going to bite us in the end.

"They were shooting wide-open shots [in the first half] and just missing them. In the second half, they weren’t missing them as much. Courtney Lee stepped up, their point guard stepped up and had 26 in the second half, so they were no joke. They were very well-coached and they were a very talented team."

What about Saturday? Love said, "I wasn’t as happy as you’d think winning the game here and advancing to the Elite Eight because we made some mistakes that weren’t acceptable for this team, and we have to come and play a lot better on Saturday if we want to win. I’m going to talk to a couple of teammates and we’re going to watch a little bit of film and we’re going to have to get real serious on Saturday.

"Xavier is very good. They are a three-seed and they play up to their billing. They’ve got some big men inside that are very good as well. [Drew] Lavender is a little point guard, but he can hit the three, get inside and get to the free-throw line as well. We’re going to have to be at our best when our best is needed on Saturday."

Comments

[Jal]

Yes, ESPN and other sites are full of skeptics because of the Bruins' close calls, the questionable calls, etc. etc. To a wholly biased observer in Australia, who has followed UCLA basketball from Wooden's first teams:

.. in a tournament situation, anything can happen and, yes, anybody could get knocked out.

... the real achilles heel is not the offensive strategy, as the blogs say, but the lack of bench depth, and lack of a back up true point - but

... this is a team that has won consistently when one or two front-line players are injured, sick or, simply, having awful nights

... even in this game, 3 players had double doubles,

... In addition to KL, another player has stepped up each night,

... A lot of the players have 'something to prove' still - this is a very hungry no.1 seed, and the close wins have made them hungrier.

This is a unified team that is 'yet to peak' and has a nerve-racking way of playing to the level of competition, hence the close games - Not a bad place to be, actually, if we look at teams that peaked earlier in the season or tournament.

We're going to see a monster finish, not against Xavier, which may be close, but in the final four.

[Biff]

Bruins better learn to break the press today. That was a sorry display. I agree with the earlier poster Mbah Moute is killing 'em...10 turnovers in two games on limited minutes. Sit him out. Congrats to Keefe, he gained a lot of believers last night.

[Principal Skinner]

I know any win at this stage is a good win but . . . I'm not impressed. The Bruins will need to put together two good halves to beat Xavier. And I'm not convinced they can do it.

Prove me wrong, children, prove me wrong.

[jaded]

Jal,

I certainly hope you're right. Even when WK was within 4 pts. I knew the Bruins were going to win it, but I found my heart pounding just the same--much too close for comfort. The defensive breakdowns were uncharacteristic, but it only takes one other breakdown to get bounced out of the tournament.

Bruins, please--lengthen my life and avoid the close finishes. Just dismantle the other teams like you are so capable of doing.

[AW]

Howland is a genius!! Bringing back Keefe from his Redshirt. I never would have imagined he would have performed so good, with so little game time experience during the year. I surely did not see the coming of Keefe this year. They must have some incredible battles in practice.

One measure of a truly great coach is to see how he develops players. Not just Blue Chippers from highschool. Mata, Westbrook, Keefe, Luc-Richard and even Collison were not on everyone's #1 list or has developed their game over the last couple of years. The only one that disappoints me is Aboya, as I thought he was going to become a rebounding moster (ala Dennis Rodman).

Oh well, at least he's one of the best at taking charges!!

Hopefully Bruins can shut down Xavier and then hopefully we get Texas. Don't like the idea of facing Stanford for the 4th time.

AW